614 Reading-Course for Farmers' Wives. 



Not many generations ago each household provided itself with flour 

 and meal. Wheat, corn and rye were grown near home, carefully stored 

 and as needed were taken to the grist mill in small lots, because the 

 ground product did not keep so well as the whole grain. Every house- 

 keeper soon learned the quality of the product and the way it would work 

 in her cooking. 



JModern milling is a complicated art and each kind of grain may be 

 treated in several ways to adapt it to different purposes. Since the con- 

 sumer is not now the producer, longer time elapses between grinding 

 and use and there may be losses of flavor not always compensated for 

 by convenience and a finer texture of the finished product. For example, 

 corn is usually kiln-dried to prevent souring after grinding, and thus 

 modern meal has not the good flavor of the freshly ground meal of our 

 grandmothers' time. Because of this change in milling and because it 

 requires long, gentle cooking in any form to be palatable and digestible, 

 we seem to be using corn meal less and less. 



Our Pilgrim foremothers discovered that a bread made from a blend 

 of corn and rye meals had certain advantages over that made from either 

 alone, the corn being dry and crumbly, and the rye soft and sticky ; and 

 the true Boston brown bread still consists mainly of these two meals. 



This brief discussion will suggest many problems to the wide-awake 

 housekeeper, but the subject cannot be pursued in detail here. Several 

 bulletins published by the U. S. Department of Agriculture at Wash- 

 ington, D. C, and various experiment stations, furnish so much valuable 

 information on the subject of flour that it is not necessary to give much 

 space to it now. Some of the publications are as follows : 

 Bread and Principles of Bread Making, by Helen W. Atwater, Farmers' 



Bulletin No. 112, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, Washington, D. C. 

 Studies on Bread and Bread Making, by Harry Snyder and L. A. Voor- 

 hees, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, Washington, D. C, Office of Experi- 

 ment Stations, Bulletin No. 67. 10 cents. 

 Studies on Bread and Bread Making at University of Minnesota. 1899 

 and 1900. By Harry Snyder, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, Washing- 

 ton, D. C, Office of Experiment Stations, Bulletin No. loi. 5 cents. 

 Investigations on Digestibility and Nutritive Value of Bread, by Chas. 

 D. Woods and L. H. Merrill, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, Office of 

 Experiment Stations, Bulletin No. 85. 5 cents. 



